


The Warden

by Nation_Ustria



Category: Five Kingdoms - Brandon Mull
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It, How Do I Tag, Immortals, Magic, Memory Alteration, Pancakes, Post-Canon Fix-It, one that's reversed anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26387074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nation_Ustria/pseuds/Nation_Ustria
Summary: After Cole Randolph took the Pilgrim's Path, he returned to life on Earth and eventually forgot all about the reality of the Outskirts. Fifteen years after his adventures there, a previously unknown player in the story of the Outskirts approaches him to enlist his help—the Outskirts is in danger again, and there's no one better suited for the job of defending it.Post-canon fix-it because the canon ending makes me sad
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	The Warden

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I've had bouncing around in my head since I first finished the series a long time back, and I finally got around to writing it because my bestie wants to read it.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: The first portion of this fic (up to the first break of *****) is the official epilogue from Time Jumpers. I did NOT write it, Brandon Mull did, and I take no claim to it. I merely included it so I could get a smooth transition into the fic from the end of the canon storyline.
> 
> Also, if there are any discontinuities chalk it up to not having read the books for a few years and feel free to point them out.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> ❤️

Cole sat down on a bench by a sidewalk on the ASU campus, not far from the Hayden Library. He was in an awkward time between classes. In half an hour he would head over to the Memorial Union to meet Dalton for lunch. For the moment he figured he would enjoy the relatively mild day and catch up on some reading.

Glancing up, he noticed a beautiful girl walking toward him. There were plenty of pretty girls on campus, but this one was exceptional—tall and slender, with long brown hair and lovely features. He didn’t know her, so he tried not to stare, but when his eyes met her, she smiled as if she wanted to let him in on a private joke. Cole wondered if he might be sitting in her usual spot. As she approached Cole’s bench, he stood.

“Hi, Cole,” she said.

“Hi,” Cole said, delighted she was speaking with him, surprised that she knew his name. Her expressive eyes hinted at a playful mood. “Do I know you?”

Her smile warmed. “We were friends when we were younger.”

Cole did not see how that was possible. Could he have forgotten those lively eyes? Maybe she used to wear glasses? Or dyed her hair? He compared her against the neighborhood kids he had grown up with but came up empty.

“How do you like ASU?” she asked.

“Great so far,” Cole said. “First semester.”

“Hunter goes here too,” she said.

“Are you a friend of Hunter’s?” Cole asked. That would make sense. Hunter hung out with some cute girls.

“I like Hunter,” she said. “But I’m here for you.”

Cole felt a thrill that an attractive stranger was showing him so much attention. She seemed really personable and open. Was she a little familiar, or was it just that she effortlessly treated him like a friend? “Do you go here?”

She shook her head. “I’m from far away. I’m just here briefly.”

“What’s your name?”

“Want to guess?”

“It would take a miracle.”

Her smile broadened. “You don’t remember me at all?”

Cole tried. Maybe a girl in one of his classes? Somebody who moved away? “Not really.”

She looked a little disappointed, just for a moment. “You used to talk about the Outskirts.”

Cole blushed a little. “That was a game I played with my brother and my friend Dalton.”

“A game?”

“You know, sort of a role-playing game. Like Dungeons and Dragons. Except we made it up. Pretty nerdy, I guess.”

“Tell me about it.”

Her interest mildly surprised him. “We got really into it for a while. We filled up notebooks with stories. I even used to dream about it.”

She looked serious. “Do you think it really happened?”

Cole huffed. “I’m not crazy.”

“You used to talk about it like it might have been real.”

“With you?”

“With me.”

Cole gave an uncomfortable laugh. “We acted like it was real. That was the point. In the journals we kept, we wrote about it like it really happened. I can’t believe I told you so much about it. When did I know you? You never told me your name.”

“Mira,” she said. “We’ve met several times, but you don’t remember too well.”

“Are you teasing me?” Cole asked. “One of the characters in our game was named Mira. One of the imaginary ones.”

“That’s funny,” Mira said, pivoting away. “I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”

“Are you going?”

“I should,” Mira said. “I’ll check up on you again. Promise.”

“Want to keep in touch?” Cole asked.

“I’ll be far away and hard to reach,” Mira said. “How are you paying for school?” 

Cole was a little surprised by the direct question. “I had saved up, but an anonymous donor is paying for me. The same thing happened to Hunter and my friend Dalton. Some rich relative maybe?”

“Sounds like you have people watching over you,” Mira said. “That must be comforting.”

“Kind of mysterious,” Cole said. “I wish I could thank them.” He paused, considering her. “Are you involved in that?”

Mira flashed a smile. “Maybe a little. Have a good year.” She started backing away.

“I’ll really see you again?”

“I promise. And some others, too.”

“Others?”

“You’ll see.”

“I’ll remember you next time.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“I doubt I could forget you now.”

Mira stepped forward and took his hand. The contact felt good. “What matters is I will remember you, Cole. It can be hard to know how you impact people. Somewhere, there might be entire kingdoms that will never forget you, where people young and old speak of you with awe and consider your birthday an important holiday.”

“That’s a coincidence,” Cole said. “Today is my birthday.”

“No kidding? Happy birthday.”

Cole smiled. “You have a big imagination. I bet we would have been friends as kids.”

Mira released his hand. “You have no idea.” She backed away.

“Do you have to go?”

“I should.”

“See you next time.”

“Count on it.”

*****

Cole did see her again, and as she promised, others too—each with the name of one of the imaginary characters from the Outskirts game. A dark-haired, bronze skinned man with a quick tongue—Jace—was one that checked in on him the most often. Other times it was women who resembled Mira, both older and younger—Destiny, Honor, Elegance, Constance. Once or twice it had even been a skinny man who jumped at every motion—he called himself Twitch—and every once and a while there was someone who visited only once, the list of their names too long to recite.

And Cole forgot all of them. It was as if it hadn’t happened within days of each meeting. But without fail, the visits kept happening, the same people checking in on him month after month, year after year. Mira in particular visited him on every birthday, and oftentimes during the months in between. 

But after Cole graduated from college, they abruptly stopped.

He didn’t notice, of course—he hadn’t even known to expect the meetings when they had happened. But as months turned into a year, he got restless. It was starting to drive him nuts, trying to figure out what was wrong—after all, he had a good life. He had a high-paying job that he enjoyed, a nice apartment in the city, got to meet up with friends and family regularly. It was everything he’d ever wanted, but a nameless voice kept nagging at the back of his mind, telling him that something was missing. Something important.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what.

*****

Cole woke with a start. Unsure what had woken him, he squinted at his alarm clock. It read 2:47 AM, the little dots between the numbers blinking much too cheerily for such an early hour. Cole rolled over in bed, burying his face in his pillow and trying to go back to sleep. 

It didn’t work. After several minutes, he kicked his blankets off and stepped out into the hallway, intending to get a drink—but the kitchen lights were already on. Instantly, all of Cole’s senses went on red alert—he _knew_ he’d turned the lights off before he went to bed. Which meant one thing: There was an intruder in his apartment.

Cole crept towards the kitchen as cautiously as he could. Now that he was actually paying attention, he could hear the intruder moving around the kitchen. They were humming quietly under their breath, a sound that was occasionally accented by the clinking of dishes.

Just around the corner, Cole furrowed his brow. Had someone broken into his apartment just to make themself food? Then another thought occurred to him, and he looked down at himself. He was barefoot, in his pajamas, and empty-handed, but he felt more than ready to face the intruder. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t scared or nervous at all. Instead he felt the same sense of calm he felt in any situation that usually had other people frightened or panicking, the sense that there were _much_ worse things to be afraid of than something as simple as this.

“Kudos to you for moving quietly,” a woman’s voice said brightly, making Cole jump. “But I know you’re there.”

A faint blush heating his cheeks, Cole stepped into the kitchen, his hands curled reflexively at his sides.

The intruder was a young woman who looked about the age of most college freshman, somewhere in between a teenager and an adult. She was slender but not small, and had the lightest hair Cole had ever seen in his life slung in a ponytail over her shoulder. Her eyes twinkled happily as she dumped a measuring cup of—was that flour?—into a large mixing bowl. Several baking ingredients covered Cole’s counter, and a large pan was heating on the stove.

“Are you making _pancakes_?” Cole blurted. 

“Yep,” the woman popped the p, measuring out another cup of flour. “With sprinkles.” She held up the bottle of rainbow sprinkles with her free hand, shaking it in a half-decent imitation of a maraca. 

Cole couldn’t help it, he laughed. Out of everything that could have happened, this is probably what he had least expected. “So, you broke into my apartment to make pancakes.”

The woman hummed her confirmation. “ _Birthday_ pancakes.”

That took Cole by surprise. It _was_ his birthday, wasn’t it? Admittedly, it was three in the morning, but still technically his birthday.

“You’re a very special person, Cole Randolph,” the woman said, now measuring the wet ingredients into a second bowl. 

Cole stepped towards her, watching her carefully. There wasn’t a recipe in sight, but it was obvious that she knew what she was doing. Even when she spoke, her hands never hesitated, never paused. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“No, but I know you.”

“Sorry?”

She looked up, making eye contact with him. “I’ve watched you for a very long time—a little less than fifteen years, actually.” She stated it as a fact, as though it wasn’t creepy in the slightest. Cole was _definitely_ a little creeped out, and the oddity of the situation hit him in full force.

“Who are you?” Cole asked, his hand creeping to his waist. He wasn’t sure why he did that, it wasn’t like there was anything there for him to grab. It’d been a habit for nearly as long as he could remember.

The woman smiled. “My name’s Nation.”

Cole waited for more, but that was all she said. “And you’ve been watching me . . . why?”

“Because you’re special. In more ways than one, too.” The batter completed, Nation started spooning it onto the heated pan with a measuring cup.

“I’m hardly ‘special’,” Cole countered. He stepped around the counter and started putting the ingredients back into their cupboards and drawers, still watching Nation carefully. Once the pan was filled, Nation set the bowl of batter aside and joined him. They cleaned in silence for the minute or two it took for them to get the kitchen back to its usual state. Cole was more than a little surprised that he was just rolling with this—common sense told him he should call the police, or at the very least ask the woman to leave. Instead he was assististing her as she made pancakes with sprinkles, as if this _wasn’t_ the weirdest situation he’d ever been in in his life.

“Do you remember that haunted house you and Dalton went through in sixth grade?” Nation asked, seemingly out of the blue as Cole settled on one of his kitchen stools, folding his arms over the countertop. “On Halloween?”

Cole paused, giving her a weird look. That was an oddly specific event to bring up, and the fact that she even knew about it seemed to reinforce her ‘I’ve been watching you for a little less than fifteen years’ statement. Actually, that night was almost _exactly_ a little less than fifteen years ago.

“Yeah, I remember.” It’d been pretty lame, if Cole was recalling it correctly. Kinda cheap.

“This’ll sound a bit weird, but humour me,” Nation said. She leaned on the counter across from Cole, looking at him seriously. “What happened that night?”

Cole ran his fingers through his hair, thinking. This was just getting weirder the longer it went on, but he might as well humor her. She hadn’t done any harm so far. “After school, Dalton and I—wait, and Jenna, plus another couple of friends . . .” Cole couldn’t remember the other friends’ names, but it probably wasn’t that important to Nation. “We went trick-or-treating, then once we were done, we went through the haunted house. What do you want me to tell you?” he asked.

“What was the haunted house like?” Nation prompted.

Cole thought back. Man, that’d been such a long time ago. “The decorations outside were decent, headstones and fake ravens and jack-o-lanterns and stuff. There was strobe lights and fog and stuff inside, and there was this knight that came at us. He was pretty lame, though.”

“And then?” Nation reached out, placing her hand over Cole’s. He glanced at it in surprise, but Nation was solely focused on him.

“And then . . . then this guy came to lead us to the next part of the house.” Cole grimaced. These memories were blurrier, harder to remember. “We went down into the basement. It was way creepier, and there was this woman—” Cole grunted. His head was starting to hurt, and with the hand Nation wasn’t covering he rubbed his forehead. The memories were blurring in and out of focus, almost like a mirage. A particular moment snapped into perfect clarity. “Wait, we were _attacked_ . There were kids in cages, and—and they made them go down this hole, and I— _Ah!_ ” Pain was stabbing through Cole’s head, white-hot knives that were tearing into his skull. The memory kept playing—chains and wagons and a carving that talked—and Cole was pulled into it as the very act of remembering set his mind on fire. Then something was twisting in his chest, a warmth that was foreign and yet so strangely familiar at the same time, and the world went black.

*****

When Cole came to he was lying on his couch, looking up at the ceiling. His head hurt, but it was a dull throb and was fading quickly. Nothing like some of the pain he’d experienced in the Outskirts. 

Cole shot upright—he _remembered_. He remembered everything—Jace and Mira and all the others, everything from the Sky Raiders to battling Ramarro. His mind felt as if it were overflowing, full of the memories he’d sworn not to forget. Cole winced. He’d forgotten. All of the times that his friends from the Outskirts had visited him, they’d been strangers. 

He knew all of them now.

Cole glanced around and found Nation watching him with interest, her legs folded underneath her in the armchair. He knew for certain that he’d never met her before, in the Outskirts or otherwise, so he regarded her with caution as he shifted to a more comfortable position.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

Nation’s eyebrows rose, an expression that was somewhere between amused and offended crossing her face. “You’re welcome.”

Cole huffed out a breath. His mind was still spinning a little, reeling at the sudden return of so much information. “Sorry. But . . . how did you? It’s supposed to be impossible.” He paused, regarding her. “You’ve been watching me for fifteen years?”

“Ever since you went into that haunted house,” Nation replied evenly.

“How come I never saw you?”

Nation shrugged. “I didn’t want to be seen.”

Cole ignored the weirdness of the statement as something occurred to him. “Hang on—how did I get to the couch?”

“I carried you.” At Cole’s look of surprise, Nation huffed out a laugh. “I’m stronger than I look, and you collapsed—I figured the couch was better than the tile.”

Slightly embarrassed, Cole felt a rush of gratitude as he glanced at where he’d been sitting at the kitchen counter. It was then that he noticed the plate of piled pancakes that sat next to a bottle of syrup. Cole glanced at the oven clock. It read 4:16. He’d been unconscious for over an hour!

“Pancakes?” Nation asked, standing up.

“. . . Sure.” At a loss, Cole watched her deftly prepare two stacks of pancakes, each practically drowned in butter and syrup. The baked-in sprinkles gave them a cheery appearance.

Nation handed Cole his plate then plopped back down on the armchair, folding her legs underneath her again as she eagerly dug into her stack. Not wanting to come off as rude, Cole took a bite of his own—then made a noise of surprise. They tasted _amazing_. They were probably the best pancakes Cole had ever had, and soon he was wolfing the rest of his stack down. 

When Cole paused to breathe, glancing up at Nation, she flashed a mischievous smile. “I may not be the best cook, but I can definitely do pancakes.”

Cole mumbled his agreement with his mouth half-full, making Nation laugh. Then Cole swallowed, his thoughts circling back to earlier. “You never _did_ explain how you gave me my memories back,” he said, a hint of warning in his voice.

Nation glanced down at her plate, seeming to consider. After a few moments she looked back up at Cole, tilting her head. Her dark eyes were surprisingly bright, intelligence and personality shining through. She licked the syrup off her lips, then spoke. “Well, the honest answer is that _I_ didn’t do it— _you_ did.”

“ _I_ —what?” 

Nation shrugged. “I enabled your shapecrafting to work here, at least temporarily. You _wanted_ to remember—even if you didn’t consciously know you did—and used your power to shape your own mind so you could.”

Cole stared at her, disbelieving. “You made my shapecrafting work.”

“Yes, I did,” she stated patiently.

“What— _how?_ ”

“With my own abilities.” Cole waited for her to say something else, but she just stuffed another forkful of pancake in her mouth.

“ _Mind elaborating,_ ” he growled. He was breathing too hard, his hands balled into fists—for nearly _fifteen years_ he’d forgotten, and she just swaggered in and made it so he could get those memories back? 

Still chewing, Nation considered him, her gaze more shielded than before. She swallowed. “I wanted to do this years ago,” she said softly.

Taken aback, Cole’s anger deflated. “So . . . why didn’t you?”

Nation huffed out a breath, setting her plate on the arm of the chair so she could gesture freely, her motions accenting her words. “Believe it or not, there are rules regarding this kind of thing— _extremely frustrating_ rules, but rules nonetheless. Bleh.” She wrinkled her nose. “‘Nonetheless’ is a weird word. _Anyways_ , I couldn’t do it before now.”

“And _how_ did you do it?” Cole asked again, feeling like they were going in circles.

“I told you. With my own abilities.” She held up her hand placatingly, cutting Cole off. “ _Yes_ , I’ll elaborate. I’m—well—let’s put it this way: I’m extremely powerful and can essentially shape anything anywhere, though it’s not technically shaping, and—as I mentioned—I have to follow quite a lot of rules.”

Cole took a moment to process that, then decided to accept it and move on. “What happens if you don’t?” Cole questioned. 

“Don’t follow the rules? Well, short answer: reality shatters.”

“Oh.” Cole couldn’t think of how to respond to that. It almost sounded worse than what Ramarro had threatened, and if Nation was telling the truth, that meant that she was seriously powerful. Well, she _had_ to be to make Cole’s shaping work on Earth—even the Torivors had said that feat was impossible.

“Who are you?” Cole asked warily. He tried not to show that he was afraid—and he _was_ afraid, truly and properly for the first time since leaving the Outskirts—but he couldn’t keep his shoulders from tensing, his hand from slowly reaching for the jumping sword he no longer wore. “ _What_ are you?”

Nation’s gaze flicked from Cole’s face to his shoulders to his hand and back to his face again, so quick that Cole almost missed it. But he hadn’t, and in that instant he knew that Nation could see exactly what he was feeling.

Somehow, the notion wasn’t comforting.

Nation cocked her head. Her voice serious, she said, “I’m an Eternal.” This time, when Cole waited, she _did_ say more. “I travel throughout all the different worlds and watch them develop, providing guidance and assistance when I can. Technically I’m immortal, but I think and feel just like a human does. I also have lots of powers that I can’t use as often as I’d like.” Apparently finished, she stabbed more of her pancakes—carefully, so as to not tip her plate off the arm of the chair.

“And you’ve been watching _me_ ? Why?” Cold thought he already knew the answer—everything Mira and Jace and all the others had said to him _about_ him over the last several years swirling in his mind. He didn’t think he deserved it, though. Yeah, he had helped save the Outskirts, but that was all he’d done—he’d _helped_. He wasn’t some grand hero, he’d been a _kid_ —only twelve years old at the time! And it had taken so many people to take down Ramarro—Cole had only been part of a team!

“Because you’re special,” Nation said simply. “Not only do you possess the most powerful shaping talent I’ve ever seen, but you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

“I’ve changed since I was twelve—”

“You’ve _grown_ since you were twelve,” Nation countered, pointedly stabbing at Cole with her pancake-loaded fork. “Yes, you’re a little different—I’d be worried if you weren’t after fifteen years spanning childhood to adulthood—but your _values_ haven’t changed. How you interact with other people hasn’t changed. You’re still kind, attentive, thoughtful and loyal; you still have a level head and a fierce passion for what you believe in. You’re still the Cole Randolph who saved the Outskirts, just with a little more life under his belt.”

“ _I_ didn’t save the Outskirts,” Cole insisted, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not alone—everyone else was just as important, definitely more so than me!”

Nation’s lips twitched, but Cole couldn’t place the emotion behind it. Amusement? Sadness? Annoyance? 

“Yes, everyone else helped,” Nation conceded. She shifted, crossing her legs. “Many of them were key players, and that shouldn’t be forgotten. But _you_ —you weren’t just key, you _led_. You were the one who kept everyone going, who got everyone out of the sticky situations. You thought on your feet when others froze, dared to go where others thought it was suicide to venture because it was needed. Without _you_ , Cole, none of it ever would have happened.”

“The same could be said of any of the others,” Cole argued.

This time, Nation did smile. It was small, but unnervingly wise. “None to the same extent as you.”

Cole sank into his couch, trying in vain to disappear into it. “I’m not a hero,” he grumbled.

“The sentiment does you credit.” An unreadable expression crossed her face, and she added, “And I have to say, it’s quite refreshing to meet a man who doesn’t have much of an ego. _But_ —” she clapped her hands together, her face turning serious, “—that’s enough of that for now. I’m here for a reason—an _additional_ reason, on top of helping you regain your memories. And, uh,” she glanced at the pancakes on the counter, “making you an early breakfast.”

Dread made Cole’s stomach drop, making him wish he hadn’t eaten quite so many pancakes. 

“I told you before that I wasn’t able to enable you to regain your memories before now,” Nation said solemnly. “But the reason why I _could_ help you tonight is why I’m here.” She paused, seemingly more for Cole’s benefit than for her own. Cole wished that she’d just say it—a thousand scenarios were racing through his mind, each worse than the last.

“The Five Kingdoms are in turmoil,” Nation said, tucking a strand of hair that had fallen loose behind her ear. “A war between five secret factions has broken out—one in each Kingdom, for each type of shaping.”

“ _Secret_ factions?” Cole asked. “Seriously? More secret societies?”

Nation snorted softly. “Unfortunately. The activities these engage in are illegal across all of the Kingdoms. Those who participate don’t care about the laws. Initially, they buried themselves deep—so deep, that there wasn’t even a rumor of them—to avoid being hindered, but recently . . . well. The short answer is that some of the factions have gotten close to their goal. It’s been a sort of race between the factions, ever since they were founded, and now that they’re drawing close to the finish line, all bets are off. They’re fighting dirty with each other, and they don’t care who gets caught in the crossfire.”

“A shaping war,” Cole murmured, thinking. Shapers of all types were powerful, and battling each other—the collateral damage had to be _terrible_. “But aren’t they confined to their own Kingdoms? Their shaping abilities, I mean?”

“For the most part, that’s true—which is why the majority of the fighting is happening in the capital. But there are a few . . . _anomalies._ Malicious uses of shaping in the wrong Kingdoms.”

“What? How is that even possible?”

“They use tokens, items of power that bend the rules for them. Like the ring that Twitch has, except for with shaping. They’re very powerful—and incredibly rare. I’m not sure where they even came from.”

Actually knowing what was wrong was worse than any of the scenarios Cole had come up with. He mentally ran through all of the information, then hit a snag. Nation had left out a very important detail. “What _is_ their goal?”

Nation was silent for a long moment. Then, “To punch a hole through the fabric of the Outskirts that allows them to return to Earth—while retaining their shaping abilities.”

Cole stared at her, hoping for all the world that she’d say she was joking. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t.

Once, before coming back from the Outskirts, Cole had entertained the fantasy of being able to keep his shaping abilities when he got home. Who wouldn’t, when you could do the things he did? But it hadn’t taken him long to realize that shapers on Earth would be _chaos_. There were too many different political powers, to many tensions that were already scarily close to sparking wars without adding super-powered people into the mix. Shapers would either be used as weapons, or they’d rise to power—and Cole had already seen how shapers could be just as selfish and power-hungry as anyone else. And that was even if shaping didn’t actually start tearing holes in reality—after all, how many times had it been emphasized that Earth wasn’t structured that way? That the Outskirts was an in-between place, unique from the rest of the universe? If people were close to finding a way to force through all of that, the results would be catastrophic.

“Why are you just getting involved now?” Cole asked. “The Outskirts was in danger before.” _We could have used your help with Ramarro_ was left unsaid, but Cole knew that Nation heard it.

“Like I said, some of the factions are getting close. _Very_ close. And because of that . . .” Nation hesitated. “The closer the factions get, the more the bond between Earth and the Outskirts gets thrown out of whack. The Outskirts is destabilizing. The borders between Kingdoms are blurring, shaping is starting to go haywire, and the edges of the Outskirts are _literally_ starting to crumble—and if the Outskirts falls in the way it seems that it’s going to, it’ll take all of the other worlds with it.”

 _Well, crap._ Cole sighed. “So, how do we stop it?” 

The corner of Nation’s mouth quirked. “‘We’ already?”

Cole opened his mouth, then closed it, not sure how to respond. He couldn’t really help the Outskirts from Earth, could he? And as much as he cared for the Outskirts and the people who lived there, Earth was his _home_. Returning to the Outskirts would mean that his family and friends would forget about him, unless he chose to come back through Pilgrim Path a second time—and lose his memories of the Outskirts again.

“I’m . . . not sure,” Cole finally said. “I want to help, but . . .”

Nation smiled quietly. “I understand.” There was a brief pause, then she returned to her explanation. “Ideally, getting the factions to stop fighting would be the best way to fix everything—but we’d need a full reversal of everything they’ve done, which would require cooperation between the factions, along with all of them undoing all of the work they’ve spent centuries on, and I doubt that’s happening anytime soon. So, plan B is to stabilize the bond between the Outskirts and Earth.”

“Stabilize it? How?”

Nation opened her mouth, then closed it, puffing out her cheeks as she seemed to reconsider what she’d been about to say. Finally, she sighed. “In concept, it’s simple enough. It’s like—well, anchoring the Outskirts to Earth. Tying them together with extra cords so that they’re stable. Building a bridge that connects them, but still keeps them separate. So, not really a bridge since no one could go over it, but—I am not explaining this very well. So, maybe not so simple.”

“I think I get it,” Cole said. “You’re linking them together, strengthening the connection they already have so that it stabilizes. Simple in theory, like you said, but I’m guessing not in practice?”

Nation tugged on her ponytail. “It’s simple in practice for _me_ , but not for the person who becomes the bond.”

Cole blinked. “. . . What?”

“Well, for the bond to form between worlds—the way it’d be strongest would be if it was a person. Someone who belonged not just to Earth or the Outskirts, but to both.”

 _Oh._ Finally, Cole understood why Nation was here, talking to him. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Was he really her first choice?

But then again . . .

He took a deep breath. “What would it be like? For whoever becomes the connection,” he added, not wanting to sound eager. Or not wanting to commit quite yet. A little bit of both?

“Well, for one, they’d be able to travel between the two worlds with no repercussions.”

Cole straightened, not believing his ears. “Wait, _seriously_?”

“Yep.”

“But how would that even work?” Cole’s mind was racing with the possibilities. If she was saying what he thought she was, then maybe—

“If you want me to explain the magic behind it, we’d be here all night,” Nation said flatly. She rearranged her legs. “But if you’re asking about how it’d function, basically the Warden would gain the ability to open portals between Earth and the Outskirts at will—kind of like a Wayminder—and travel back and forth without forgetting or being forgotten. Of course, Shaping would stay in the Outskirts, and if anyone else came through the portals then the normal rules would apply.”

That made sense, but something else had caught Cole’s attention. “The Warden?” he asked.

Nation nodded. “Being the connection—well, it’s more than just actually _being_ it. It’s a responsibility as well. It’s ensuring that both worlds remain safe from threats, whether from each other or from other worlds, and actively working to neutralize any that are. Of course, there’s no actual authority that comes with the responsibility, but it’s a duty. One would have to balance their time on Earth with time spent fighting in the Outskirts. Split their life between two worlds.”

Nation went quiet, looking at Cole expectantly as she sat almost unnervingly still.

Cole ran a hand over his head, carefully thinking it over. This was not something to jump into, no matter how much his instincts told him to. He had to think, consider the effect that this would have on his life. Eventually he let out a long breath.

“So?” Nation asked quietly.

Cole made up his mind. He straightened, looking Nation in the eye.

“I’ll do it.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> This is all I have planned as it was mostly intended as a fix-it, but if anyone were ever interested in reading the storyline that comes after this (it's loosely plotted), I wouldn't object to fleshing it out. 
> 
> I love questions and comments if you have any!
> 
> ❤️


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